


Knightleys

by tosca1390



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-10
Updated: 2011-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:53:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you think it’ll be weird?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knightleys

*

“Do you think it’ll be weird?”

“No,” Rory called from her mother’s bathroom, white tiles cool under her bare feet. Only her mother would marry in winter, in the midst of snow.

From the bedroom, she could hear Lorelai huff. “I do. Like Emma and Mr. Knightly weird.”

Rory slipped the curlers from her hair, twirling her fingers through the ringlets for soft waves. Her hair was just past her shoulders now, and the blunt bangs she’d worn so well for a few years grown out, all coalescing into something more adult, she thought. “Who’s who?”

“You are Emma, of course. Jess is Mr. Knightly.”

“But Jess and I were together before you and Luke,” Rory retorted. “So technically you’re Emma and I’m Isabella.”

Lorelai popped her head in, hair loose and long over her shoulders, in smooth curls, her eyebrow up skeptically. Rory couldn’t help but grin; even on her wedding day, Lorelai still slept in her Hello Kitty t-shirt (“for luck”, she’d said during their wedding eve movie marathon consisting of _While You Were Sleeping_ and _Muriel’s Wedding_ , among others) and her worn yoga pants. Some things really never changed. “I’m pretty sure your first break-up means you lost your chance to be Isabella,” she said.

Rory met her mother’s eyes in the wide bathroom mirror, planting a hand on her hip. “You’re the one who took _forever_ to see what was right in front of you!”

“And you didn’t?”

There was no winning with Lorelai today. “Fine, you can be Emma, and Luke is Mr. Knightly, and you’re not allowed to watch anymore BBC adaptations, okay?” Rory said, passing her mother as she walked out into the bedroom. Snow fluttered through the air in the grey January day, a perfect day for Lorelai Gilmore to get married.

Lorelai leaned against the doorframe to the bathroom. “Still, it isn’t weird?”

Smoothing the skirt of her deep midnight blue bridesmaid dress as it lay on her mother’s bed, Rory glanced back. “Why would it be?”

“Now you and Jess will be _related_ ,” Lorelai replied, her voice at a hush.

Rory rolled her eyes. “No, we really won’t. And it’s not as if he’s Luke’s _son_. That might have been weird, but he isn’t, so it’s not.”

Snorting, Lorelai moved to the closet door, where her dress, creamy and soft and pale, hung in wait. “Ladies and gentlemen, my daughter, the Penn graduate student.”

“My logic totally works,” Rory protested.

“Yeah, you’re a regular Spock.”

Rory watched her mother for a moment, listening to her hum something nonsensical, her fingers light on her dress as she took it off the hanger. “Does it bother you?” she asked, a curl of hesitation in her voice.

Lorelai looked away from her dress, eyes wide. “Babe, not at all! It’s just something I was thinking about, that’s all.”

“And thinking is always troublesome when you’re doing it,” Rory said easily, relief sliding across her shoulders. When it came to Jess, Lorelai had always had strong opinions, and sometimes Rory felt like she was on a tightrope between their past actions, the present they lived in, and the future they planned for in quiet, far-between moments.

In the faint winter light, Lorelai smiled. “You know, I like Jess now. He’s all upright and upstanding and writer-ly, calls Luke regularly, and acts like a human being. You two together are just the most precious not-hipster hipsters in the universe.”

Color rose high on Rory’s cheeks, despite her mother’s light tone. “Mom, ew. We are not hipsters.”

So what if they lived in a tiny apartment above the bookstore on Sansom where he still worked, as she researched and pieced together her thesis on gender representation in Victorian-era Russian literature and drama, and he toiled on his third book (a collection of short stories, this time). It was just until she finished her degree (just months away), and then who knows where they would go?

“I said _not-hipster hipsters_ , there’s a difference,” Lorelai teased as she crossed the room, the floorboards creaking under her bare feet.

Smoothing back her hair, Rory smiled. “Yeah, I know. I don’t think Grandma and Grandpa agree with you though.”

“Crazysauce. Your grandfather thinks Jess is hilarious, and your grandmother isn’t over his black eye from dinner all those years ago. She’s melting, just at pre-global warming rates,” Lorelai chirped.

“Well she should speed up a bit,” Rory grumbled, skimming her fingertips along the lines of her dress. “Throw some carbon dioxide in her bedroom or something.”

The silence was startling; Rory glanced up. Lorelai was watching her, mirth curling her mouth, and touched her cheek gently. “Just call her Mohammad at this point, sweets. C’mon, let’s get prettied-up. Do you think Jess and Luke are talking about who is Mr. Knightley? I make Luke watch the newest version of _Emma_ , you know. Thought he’d end the engagement right then and there.”

*

Later, after snowflakes and misty eyes and Luke in a very nice suit and her grandmother shaking her head repeatedly over a winter wedding, Jess tracked her down on the front porch of the Dragonfly.

She’d come out for a breath of air, to collect her thoughts. Her mother was married again, this time to the right guy, and the world seemed to settle with her. Snow still drifted easily from the sky but a soft silence had settled around the Dragonfly. Even the reception inside, with the laughter and music and her mother catcalling Luke across the entire lobby, had taken on a muted quality.

“You look about as blue as your dress.”

Breathing out slowly, she turned and smiled. “Why thank you, you look very handsome yourself,” she said dryly.

In his new suit, hair slicked back and managed, he looked nothing like the Jess she woke up to in the mornings, ate Thai and Mexican with in the evenings, fought with often enough. He slipped an arm across her shoulders easily, mussing the lay of her thick wool shawl. “I like the dress,” he murmured near her ear, his mouth very close. His breath warmed her right through.

“You did very well as the best man,” she said. “Admirable. Top notch. Very Mr. Knightley.”

“Not you too with the Mr. Knightley,” he groaned, the corners of his mouth still curved up.

“Me too? Who else?”

“Lorelai. A little while ago, she told Luke he was her Mr. Knightley, and the look on his face—“

Rory laughed, the chill settling into her skin. She leaned in closer to the frame of Jess’s body. “She made him watch _Emma_.”

“And you made me read it. Fair’s fair,” he said, tightening his arm around her.

She tipped her head up, watching his face carefully. It had been over a year since she’d walked into his bookstore and they’d walked into their lives with each other again, but she never tired of watching the wheels turn behind his dark eyes. She had the echo of it from before, long before, when they were younger and rasher and stupid, but this, here, was better.

“We make each other do things. It’s nice, don’t you think?” she asked finally.

He looked at her, a slow grin growing. “More than nice,” he said, and then kissed her, warming her right to her bones.

With his mouth on hers, his other hand curved around her hip, she thought of their small apartment, the ink stains and his legal pads full of words both illegible and meaningful and her stacks of research, her desk covered with books and careful notes. Inside, her mother laughed, light and sweet, and Rory shut her eyes and kissed him. They could both have their own Mr. Knightleys now.

*


End file.
